The Stageplays: The Curse of the Daleks

[Anthony Williams]

The Curse of the Daleks
Starring Michael Praed and Nicholas Briggs

A bit of an oddity this one. Firstly, it's Doctorless. It may seem strange to many of us. However, that's not so strange given that it was made by the same company who made the likes of Dalek Empire, Jago and Litefoot etc. Nor is this strange given the time that it was originally produced - in 1965, premiering just two months after Mission to the Unknown had aired.

So, there's immediately something that marked this play out as very much of its time. There's another factor in this too - the rampant sexism that permeates the play. There are lines such as "About a year ago, girls were supposed to be gentle creatures, very much the weaker sex and happy to be so." It's amazing, given that this play was set during the 21st Century. Certainly, I can't imagine anyone I know saying that these days!

These aren't the only things that are different about this play. David Whitaker and Terry Nation's somewhat tenuous grip on science is evident from a very early point. Water unable to boil at faster-than-light speeds? Iron filings able to destroy a radio? Then there are the anachronisms - people are still using shillings here!

Then there's the narration. It's not something I'd heard in Big Finish before outside of something like the Companion Chronicles, but I certainly do not (yet) have a comprehensive knowledge of Big Finish's output. Nick Briggs makes it fairly clear in the extras that this was added due to Daleks silently gliding around a lot in the original stageplay.

Of course, I'm very glad that Big Finish resisted the urge to modernise the play. As I said in my thoughts on The Seven Keys to Doomsday, it's wonderful to have these scripts preserved for posterity on audio in as close to their original form as Big Finish are legally allowed to.

What's lovely about this is just how much influence it clearly had on stories later broadcast on television. We have Daleks pretending to serve humans while sneakily restoring their power source (as we see in Power of the Daleks, and a variant much later on in Victory of the Daleks), as well as their rejection of a humanoid master being thrown off, as they do with Davros in Genesis of the Daleks.

The other thing that's lovely about this particular production is the attention that's been paid to the soundscape. The sounds of Skaro and the Dalek city are, if not the authentic sounds, then extremely good reproductions. The slightly strange thing is that the whirring noises that the Daleks make in this are more reminiscant of those in the new series, rather than anything from Doctor Who's original twenty-six year run.

Ultimately, there's nothing overly special about this play. It's a bit long, it's quite clearly a product of the 60s and it's Doctorless. However, it's wonderful that this exists now in at least some format for us to enjoy and experience. It's really nothing special, but just about above average. I give it 6/10!

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Sounds an interesting oddity.

[Rob McCow]

I tried listening to this on my MP3 player while I was on the plane back from New Zealand a few years ago. Sadly, the order of the tracks had been muddled, so it made little sense.

I never got round to listening to it properly. And that was a source of Great Saaaaadness for Mr Michael Praed.